The Killing Fields

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, but don't expect a good night's sleep afterwards
Review: I saw this 1984 film when it first came out, but after reading
"River of Time" by the British journalist, Jon Swain, I knew
I had to see it again. This time, it had an even stronger impact on
me. The screenplay is based on the true story written by Sydney
Schanberg, a New York Times reporter in Cambodia who had to leave his
Cambodian friend and colleague Dith Pran behind when the Khmur Rogue
took over the country in 1975. Dith Pran is forced into a worker's
camp, where he endures unspeakable agonies until he finally
escapes.

The movie won three well-deserved academy awards. One was
best for cinematography. I can understand why. Even though the movie
was shot in Thailand, the feeling of Indo-China and the area along the
Mekong display its great beauty as well as the countryside. Jon Swain
describes this in his book, but there is nothing like seeing it on the
screen. And then there are the killing fields themselves, with bones
and rotting corpses that Dith Pran discovers. Anyone who has ever
seen this film will never forget this scene.

The second award was
for film editing. That was a job of real artistry. It is always a
choice of what tiny segments of a scene to emphasize and the editors
got it exactly right. There was the terrified child holding her hands
over her ears to shut out the bombing sounds. There was the tiny
vegetable that Dith Pran plucks off a plant with relish when he is in
the prison camp. There is the wash of blood on the floor in the
hospital where people were dying.

Dr. Hang S. Ngor won an Oscar for
his role of Dith Pran, one of the few non-professional actors to ever
win an Oscar. He was especially suited to the part because he,
himself, had endured 4 years of torture and imprisonment in a
Cambodian work camp. He had to hide his identity of physician and
watch his young wife die in childbirth while there. No wonder he was
able to play the part so well. I understand he was murdered in his
garage in his home in Los Angeles in 1996 during a robbery in which he
tried to protect a memento from his wife.

The entire cast was
wonderful, each acting performance outstanding. Sam Waterson played
Sydney Schanberg with passion and realism. John Malkovich played his
photographer sidekick. And Julian Sands had a small role as
journalist Jon Swain who was one of the three westerners saved from
execution by the intervention of Dith Pran and whose tried
unsuccessfully to forge a passport to help Dith Pran escape.

Even
though the movie was 141 minutes long, I was totally absorbed with the
same kind of horrific fascination I felt while reading Jon Swain's
book. It's hard to believe that such horrors go on in the world while
we sit here in our comfortable lives. This movie shocks us into
reality. And makes us appreciate our blessings. It also reminded me
of the role of the journalist to go out on the front lines and risk
their lives for their stories. They are to be applauded as being the
witnesses to their times.

Highly recommended. But don't expect a
good night's sleep afterwards.



Rating:
Summary: War Drama about Cambodia
Review: Most war movies from the 80's are about Vietnam and sometimes the horrible events in Cambodia are snowed under.
'The Killing Fields' is about the friendship between NY Times Reporter Syd and his Cambodian interpreter and later friend. When the western journalists flee the country they try and get him with them by forging a passport but it fails and Tran stays behind. He gets caught by the Khmer Rouge and forced to work in slavery, by not letting known he speaks English he survives and escapes and finds his friend Syd again.

The movie is great and emotional. Some scenes are awful but lifelike. Though shot in Thailand, the scenery is beautiful. The acting is fine too, the man playing Tran won an oscar. His own personal life is very closely linked to the events in Cambodia too and this movie is also in part about him. He unfortunately got killed in the late 1990's, possibly by the Khmer in LA.

Rating:
Summary: AN AMAZING MOVIE I LEARNED ABOUT FROM A MEMOIR!
Review: I had learned about this movie after reading an amazing memoir that just came out last summer called, "The Bamboo Chest". The author, Frederick "Cork" Graham was an extra hired by the production company to play one of the marines that you see during the US Embassy evacuation of Phnom Pen. But, the day Graham was supposed to go to the site, he was invited on an opportunity to actually sneak into a forbidden area of Vietnam, near the Cambodian border, which ended up in him becoming the first American political prisoner held by the Vietnamese since the end of the war.

He was an 18 year old photojournalist covering the covert insertion: talk about life imitating film!! If you enjoyed the movie, then you'll especially enjoy Graham's book to get an idea of how those caucasian extras appeared in the movie (no they werent' brought out from Hollywood). You'll also get the background dirt on Sydney Schanberg, from quotes from Graham's bureau chief in Bangkok who was with AP in Phnom Pen with Schanberg!

And remember, in 1983, when "Killing Fields" was made in Thailand, and Graham was captured, the Khmer Rouge were still fighting, so Graham fills in on not only the history in more detail than the movie, but also what was happening in South East Asia in the early 1980s.

Read "The Bamboo Chest"? Then watch "Killing Fields"! Seen "Killing Fields"? Then read the "The Bamboo Chest"!

Rating:
Summary: HAUNTING CHRONICLE OF THE ASIAN HOLOCAUST
Review: I'll try hard not to slide into the "Triumph of Humanity" routine as many a doting reviewer is wont to do, but despite its age (about 25 years), it's misplaced use of Lennon's music, and its willed oversight of some inconvenient facts (e.g., the blanket bombing of Cambodia by US airplanes), this is a phenomenal movie. For several reasons.

First, Southeast Asia's tryst with wars has germinated into a bunch of memorable film epics (Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now) and some good contextual dramas (Deer Hunter). But here is a story told a little closer to the ground, of people who were not very "important" and certainly not very powerful, who got caught up in events that were indifferent to them. It succeeds because it conveys both a political/human rights story and an intense personal drama.

Second, the movie doesn't succumb to typical Hollywood devices where haphazard chances of life and unanticipated twists of fate tiptoe into a theatrical formula with such alacrity that what might once have happened to a real person begins to look like it happened to John Wayne. Killing Fields trusts us instead to find the characters interesting in their rawness against their grotesque realities. It is a risk that works and makes it into a deeply affecting experience.

Third, the film is a masterful achievement on all technical levels. The stunning visuals of Cambodia are convincing, which makes the point that much more strident. The background score, or the lack of it at crucial moments, is marvellous. But the most special moments are the human ones: the conversations, the exchanges of trust, the waiting around, the sudden fear, the quick bursts of violence, the desperation.

Fourth, and most important, it is doubly memorable because of its authenticity. Not only is the story true, the co-star Haing S. Ngor was a non-actor, a medical doctor by training, and an actual survivor/refugee of the real 'Killing Fields' of Cambodia.

The movie may be seem slow-paced in the second half to some as we see our Cambodian protagonist camouflage himself to escape the dreaded Khmer Rouge, but that's because it relies less on dialogue at this stage and more on the stirring visuals.

It's the sort of stuff one wishes never to have to watch, much less live through. But what a fabulously constructed motion picture!

Rating:
Summary: Always get on the chopper!
Review: This movie could be considered an "Epic". It is very good, especially the last couple minutes when Pran finally reaches safety & then is visited by his old journalist friend.

I took one star off because apparently the DVD version is not as long as the original. The original version showed a scene where the Vietnamese Army liberated the Khmer Rouge village right before Dith Pran makes his escape. This scene was missing & also some of the other scenes seemed shorter than they originally were. I would estimate that about 15 to 20 min. of film was chopped out of this version. I hate it when film studios do this. It's sacrilege!!!
Hopefully a Directors Cut is released so I can again see the film in it's full form.

Rating:
Summary: COMMUNISM: AN IDEOLOGY OF MURDER
Review: In 1984 Sam Waterston starred as New York Times reporter Sidney Scheinberg in "The Killing Fields". Clint Eastwood was offered the role, but turned it down. He said it was because he is a "Western WASP," not an East Coast Jew, but he probably ran from it because he is a Republican and knew that Scheinberg had been a biased Vietnam reporter and did not want to promote that. Scheinberg filed numerous reports advocating the message that the U.S. was not doing the right thing in Vietnam. The early part of the film promotes the liberal myth that it was U.S. bombs and U.S. aggression that created the situation in Cambodia. The perfidy of such a concept is mind-boggling. The U.S. did create the situation in Cambodia, because it was U.S. Democrats, led by Chappaquiddick Teddy, who de-funded the South Vietnamese until they collapsed. Then they have the bluster to tell the world, using their powerful friends in the film industry, that the Cambodian holocaust was not because they disarmed the forces of freedom, but because the Communists were incensed at American crimes, therefore justifying their rampages of mass murder against innocent civilians. Is there some alternate Universe in which this can be true. Answer: No.
However, like a fair number of films that liberals make, "The Killing Fields" ends up promoting a semi-conservative message when it gets into truthful events that cannot be portrayed any other way. Pol Pot's murder of Cambodia is undeniable. In putting it on film, it simply speaks for itself. There is little to conclude in walking out of the theatres that showed "The Killing Fields" beyond the simple conclusion that, "Communists killed millions of people," which is a fact that does not allow for much leeway. Leftists still try to find that leeway, however.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: So Powerful ...
Review: I put off seeing this movie for so long, despite my fascination with that period of history (the late 70's) in Cambodia. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle viewing graffic depictions of the Khmer Rouge atrocities I had read so much about. Finally in college, while taking a course in Southeast Asian politics, my curiousity got the best of me and I rented it. I was pleased to find that the movie, while certainly intense, wasn't too much to stomach - even for a wimp like myself (no explicit torture scenes or anything like that). Yet I still walked away with a good feel for how horrible that era in Cambodia really was. Now I've seen this film countless times!

I continue to be amazed by the one scene where Dith Pran is saying goodbye to Sidney Schanberg, as he (Pran) is being forced into Khmer Rouge custody. Meanwhile Schanberg reluctantly gets to return to a life of freedom and luxury. Their farewells are so poignant and the music is PERFECT, with the rain pouring down on them - DAMN this scene is haunting.

Equally intense is the scene showing the heartpounding, panicked evacuation of the American embassy in Cambodia, as well as the cathartic finale of the movie: the way a zealous Schanberg sprints across the New York Times newsroom after receiving word from the Red Cross, leading to the film's fantastic final scene. It gets me teary-eyed every time.

Aside from the emotional fervor this movie inspired in me, I believe it was also very accurate from what I've read and researched. Even down to the cranky, impatient mannerisms of the real-life Schanberg, which were portrayed by an outstanding Sam Waterston. (Outstanding performances were given by all in fact, especially John Malcovich and Dr. Haing Ngor - who has an astounding past of his own with the Khmer Rouge.)

While overwhelmingly bleak, The Killing Fields was ultimately inspirational. Watch this movie to be educated, and moved!

Rating:
Summary: An otherwise-outstanding movie marred by left-wing bias
Review: The first time I watched KF, when I was in my late teens, it blew me away. I gave it a five stars then. But the last time I watched it, a few months ago, I spotted some of its many defects, the foremost of which is its anti-Americanism, perfectly encapsulated in Sam Waterston's speech in which he blames the genocide on America ("I was not aware of what insanity American bombs could produce!"). Really, to accuse the U.S. of causing the Cambodian genocide is historically moronic, and only a nutjob whose intelleigence is subordinated to his ideology could make such a claim.

Shame, shame on the producers and writer for ruining what could have been one of the greatest movies ever.

Rating:
Summary: The truth about cambodia
Review: THIS MOVIE is the best one there is out there that deals with injustice in third world countries. The Khmer Rouge not only destroyed a country's innocence and faith in goernment, they wiped out nearly 2.5 million people in 3.5 years. This is the best thing besides a documentary if you have a need to learn about this. I would not reccomend it as a "fun" movie.